1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable electronic device, and more particularly, it relates to a portable electronic device provided with a camera that is able to be rotated or swung by manual operation of a user to easily change its viewing or picture-taking direction. Here, note that the portable electronic device in the present invention indicates, for example, a mobile phone, a notebook-sized personal computer, a PDA (personal digital assistant), a digital camera, a digital video camera, etc.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, for such kinds of portable electronic devices, there have been known a portable video conferencing telephone apparatus that can be carried by a user, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 6-284418, a portable personal computer as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2000-20164, etc., for instance. As shown in FIG. 12, these apparatus and computer include a camera that is arranged for forward and reverse rotation in a concave portion which is formed in one side of a casing by cutting it out in its upper central portion from its outer periphery to a predetermined depth. This camera is constructed such that the viewing direction thereof is rotatable in a range of 180 degrees in a forward direction from the front side of the casing to the rear side thereof through a camera inversion position (i.e., an upright or quarter-turned position) or vice versa so as to allow the camera to take pictures from the front side to the rear side of the casing.
In the conventional portable electronic devices as described above, the camera is arranged for free forward and reverse rotation in the concave portion which is formed by cutting a part of the casing from its outer periphery, and hence the portions of the camera lying at the cut-out peripheral side of the casing is in a state of being exposed to the outside. Accordingly, when such a portable electronic device is dropped by mistake, an impact would be imposed on the camera from the cut-out peripheral side of the casing, thus giving rise to a danger that the camera might be damaged.
In addition, when the viewing direction of the camera lies in the vicinity of the upright or quarter-turned position, it is not easy for one to know if the viewing direction has been changed to the front side or the rear side, and hence one might sometimes take pictures at an unintended side. Thus, there is also a demand that the inversion of the viewing direction of the camera should be made clear to the user.